Ch 2 Anywhere (4)

His mouth twitched at my answer. "Give me three days before you do something rash. Stay here, where I am sure you are safe."

"Three days, but you have to bring me a book or something, this place is small and I don't even have my phone."

"Yeah, sorry, no network tech inside the base. Which is why we had to take your school uniform." I could almost swear he was smiling, "Not just to see your toned, shapely body."

I reached up and jerked on his ear. His head didn't even twitch, so I tucked my head under his rough chin. How old is he anyway? He moved his hand back down my back. "I guess it is ok you liked it. You are my knight, after all right? Next time you will have to do a better job at being the only one to see me."

I felt more than heard the humph. It was a bit before my heart slowed enough for me to relax in his arms. It helped that he stayed almost statue still after that.

....

The light was off when I woke, again. Well that was one improvement over last time. I stretched carefully as I came more awake. I wasn't as sore as I had been but my side still made itself known. Well it wasn't like I had to worry about gym or other classes today.

I blinked in the darkness and smiled. I was completely under the sheet, which is not how I fell asleep. Man, I must have really passed out for him to have rearranged the sheet without me noticing. One thing I knew for sure he wasn't in the bed with me right now. The room was quiet but I wasn't sure if I would hear someone breathing.

I was tempted to just go back to sleep but there must be something I could be doing. Besides staying still wasn't like me. I sat up and the red light turned on. Goliath must have left it on a motion sensor, if this place really didn't have a network or AI. Which if they are anti-spacers, they would have to be off net. Any network connection would tell GAI where they were and the police would be here moments later, after all.

Goliath had talked like an anti-spacer. Tubers, and floaters. Without marriage most kids were born in artificial wombs or tubes. Kids were bought, and then parent communities from around the adults that buy kids. The kids born that way come with doctor active nanites that administer vaccines and other health care as needed. Tubers had the best health care, and with only one parent they had much less conflict in home life. With the Government AI also able to interface with the active nanites they had permanent nannies watching them, keeping them out of trouble. Child neglect and abuse of a tuber was next to unheard of, and they made the most productive of adults. Only not reproductive, the girls had their eggs taken at birth so that they would be available when they wanted children of their own. The nanites prevented reproduction in the men as well unless they went to the kids store. Which meant sex was much more recreational for tubers. Which did not help the classes that couldn't afford to tube their children.

I am the only surviving heir to one of the major earth-based banks, yet my nanites are passive. Only tubers can get active nanites. They have to be introduced in the first three days of germination, or they are rejected and the child dies. So a tuber mother that chose to carry her own child would be ok but any non tuber would not be able to carry a tuber. Which is a big part of why the government discourages marriage. Non tubed babies cost more, aren't as healthy, and might have unplanned children.

So I could have been tubbed, but wasn't. Why? My parents were in love and paid for a special dispensation. Keeping track of all the paperwork that went with that would have been impossible without the net. Now it was just a fact and anyone who needs to know it could look it up. Or they could even scan it off one of the passive nanites if they have the encryption key.

What about the people who cannot afford tubing? Well they couldn't afford kids then and were discouraged from having them. Some people still did but they found it very hard to get services, and there weren't many manual labor jobs left. Computers and robots were just better at most things.

So being a tuber became normal and being a natchy like me, abnormal. I hated going to a new doctor because they were always surprised I didn't have active. I wonder if the anti-spacers would have shot me anyway if their scanners had found active nanites. Maybe not, they might have just dumped me in the black market. Then I would have been a slave for true.

Of course as the only living heiress not having active nanites will annoy the CEO. If the active nanites aren't read by the net for over a year, I would be declared legally dead even without a body. Since I don't have active nanites he will have to wait ten years to declare me dead, without a body. Just having a few of my passive nanites also wouldn't be enough as they could still function away from my body and not know if the body had been functioning still at the time of separation. Active on the other hand knew if a body was still medically alive or not.

Sucks to be him. Hum, slave in an anti-spacer compound and there is still someone else I don't want to be. What am I going to do? Of course I asked Goliath to find out what is happening with the stations but that might not be easy to do here.

Floaters, the negative term used for people who made a living anywhere but earth. Most of the stations had earth equivalent forces, but there weren't any naturally occurring gravitational forces as strong as earth that people had colonized. So without a supplemental force you floated. I am not sure why the anti-spacers hate space so much, maybe I should have listened more to the news reports. Oh well.